WITH NO REAL INTENTION OF EVER BEING A FULL TIME BAND, IN TRUTH ONLY ASPIRING TO EXIST AS A COMMUNITY OF MUSICIANS, ISRAEL’S ACOLLECTIVE SPENT FORMATIVE YEARS PLAYING NOT IN VENUES (WHO BOOKS A BAND WITHOUT ANY SONGS?) BUT SPRINGING UP AT THEIR OWN GUERILLA SHOWS ON THE STREETS OF TEL-AVIV.

The crowds started forming, more and more gatherings took place and, with a hook-up in the UK, the band’s first ever real tour was put together. Within the confines of a London flat, the songs later to become debut album ONWARDS were penned and tweaked. After an unfortunate deportation saga, the band returned to Israel renewed and full of purpose, ready to enter the studio and commit all they had learned to tape. ONWARDS (released 2011) cemented their position as a band to believe in back in Israel – no small task, particularly for an indie band singing in English.
Sold out tours beckoned and it wasn’t long before they were playing international shows and festivals at the likes of Glastonbury, YNOT and SXSW. Acollective will readily admit that their transition from basement dwelling art project to international performers was a little chaotic. They were their own label, their own management, press and booking agency – and it took time for dust to settle. Their experiences across the world exposed them to a plethora of differing cultures that they felt all needed documenting in some form.

So, surrounded by “a million different beeping things”, the troupe locked themselves away in an old shoe factory and recorded their forthcoming album PANGAEA. The mere mention of influences is enough to spark bloody violence within the band. Ask them who they listen to and they’ll tell you Beck, Paul Simon, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens. Delve deeper and you’ll hear about their love of everything from Dixie jazz and Japanese pop to old-school hip-hop and modern-Arab-kitsch. Perhaps unsurprisingly this means that PANGAEA has become, at its core, quite an eclectic, unstable album – in keeping with the band’s own eclectic creative process.
As Acollective’s leader Idan Rabinovici cryptically offers; “You must keep dancing even if the ground around you is shaking, safe in the belief that things must break apart and shatter in order to reconnect again.” A statement like that sets the tone of the album; PANGAEA is worldly and wonky, caustic and cohesive, mellow and marauding in equal measure… Acollective could be one of 2014’s more interesting propositions.

PANGAEA is released through Alcopop! Records on 7th July.